Africanization

Abstract: ▪ Abstract Taking as a point of departure Fernandez's survey (1978), this review seeks to show how research on African Independent Churches (AICs) has been reconfigured by new approaches to the anthropology of Christianity in Africa, in general, and the recent salient popularity of Pentecostal-Charismatic Churches (PCCs) in particular. If the adjectives “African” and “Independent” were once employed as markers of authentic, indigenous interpretations of Christianity, these terms proved to be increasingly problematic to capture the rise, spread, and phenomenal appeal of PCCs in Africa. Identifying three discursive frames—Christianity and “traditional religion,” Africa and “the wider world,” religion and politics—which organize(d) research on AICs and PCCs in the course of the past 25 years, this chapter critically reviews discussions about “Africanization,” globalization and modernity, and the role of religion in the public sphere in postcolonial African societies.

Abstract: British colonial rule has often been praised for its comparatively benign features, such as its support of local educational development. This study argues that the impact of British educational policies and investments on the supply of schooling in British Africa should not be overstated. Until 1940, mission schools, mainly run by African converts, provided the bulk of education at extremely low costs. Given the limited financial capacity of missionary societies, the Africanization of the mission was a prerequisite for rising enrolment rates and this only occurred in areas where the demand for Western education was high. The British happened to control most of these “fertile” areas

Abstract: In February 1999 the tragic New York City police shooting of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed street vendor from Guinea, brought into focus the existence of West African merchants in urban America. In Money Has No Smell, Paul Stoller offers us a more complete portrait of the complex lives of West African immigrants like Diallo, a portrait based on years of research Stoller conducted on the streets of New York City during the 1990s. Blending fascinating ethnographic description with incisive social analysis. Stoller shows how these savvy West African entrepreneurs have built cohesive and effective multinational trading networks, in part through selling a simulated Africa to African Americans. These and other networks set up by the traders, along with their faith as devout Muslims, help them cope with the formidable state regulations and personal challenges they face in America. As Stoller demonstrates, the stories of these West African traders illustrate and illuminate ongoing debates about globalization, the informal economy, and the changing nature of American communities.

Abstract: This article focuses on epistemological decolonization, including knowledge production and its institutional locus – the university – in the post-independence African context. The article begins by problematizing both the concept and the institutional history of the university, in its European and African contexts, to underline the specifically modern character of the university as we know it and its genesis in post-Renaissance Europe. Against this background, the article traces post-independence reform of universities in Africa, which is unfolding in two waves: the first on access, Africanization, generating a debate between rights and justice; and the second on institutional reform, epitomized by the debate around disciplinarity. At the same time, the notions of excellence and relevance have functioned as code words, each signaling a different trajectory in the historical development of the university. Lastly, the article explores the role and tension between the public intellectual and the scho...